Hotelier Tom Staed, Daytona Beach tourism booster, dies at 81

Tom Staed, a pioneering oceanfront hotel owner responsible for putting Daytona Beach on the tourism map from the early 1970s, died Tuesday at age 81.

RAY WEISSSTAFF WRITER

Tom Staed, a pioneering oceanfront hotel owner responsible for putting Daytona Beach on the tourism map from the early 1970s, died Tuesday at age 81. Staed left behind a law career in Louisiana to help run a hotel owned by his father-in-law in 1961. By 1974, Staed had become the area's most prominent hotelier. With the help of investors, he built 11 family-oriented resorts on Daytona Beach and Daytona Beach Shores that included the Sheraton, the Treasure Island and the Acapulco Inn in just four years. The family still owns the Bahama House and Best Western Aku Tiki Inn. As president of Ocean Eleven Resorts, Staed went on to become a major force in local, state and national tourism and marketing circles, and was instrumental in the Florida Legislature establishing a tourist bed tax, which helped fund projects like the Ocean Center. Staed was the first chairman of the Florida Commission on Tourism and a former president of both the Florida Hotel and Motel Association and the American Hotel and Lodging Association. He was a good friend of Lawton Chiles, and helped run his campaigns for both senate and governor. Staed also was an active civic leader, involved with numerous charities and colleges throughout the area. "He was a sensational sales and marketing person. He was well liked and respected," said Bob Davis, president of the Hotel and Lodging Association of Volusia County, who knew Staed since 1966. "He believed so much in Daytona Beach and Volusia County. We were privileged to have a man of such honesty and integrity." George Mirabal, former Daytona Beach Regional Chamber of Commerce president, called Staed "one of the community's great leaders," in the same league as the late Bill France Sr. and Tippen Davidson. "No one can deny the contributions he made to this community. He was always doing good things," Mirabal said of Staed, who he first met 26 years ago. "Daytona Beach wouldn't have been what it was if not for Tom and his friends. He was the face early on for hotels, and all of the issues involving the beachfront and tourism. People looked to Tom for advice and guidance, and they followed it." Staed grew up in Memphis, served as a Marine corporal in the Korean War, majored in journalism at the University of Memphis, wrote sports briefly for a newspaper in that city and graduated from Tulane Law School, where he met his future wife, Barbara, in 1957. "He was always a hard-working man. He was a self-made hotel pioneer, trained as a lawyer, but with an entrepreneur spirit," said Blaine Lansberry, one of Staed's three daughters. Lansberry operates the family's two remaining hotels. "And if there was a good cause, my dad was involved with it. I think his legacy will be his leadership, generosity, loyalty and integrity . . . to me and my sisters, and I hope the community." Lansberry said a service for her father is planned Saturday morning at the Basilica of St. Paul in Daytona Beach, but no time has been set yet. Haigh-Black Funeral Home is in charge.